Reckoning
by Victoria Bitter
Summary: Chapter 7 uploaded...25 years after the destruction of the Ring, an old enemy returns to the Shire to seek revenge on Sam.
1. Default Chapter

Rating: This part rated PG-13, the whole thing rated NC-17 (but that part will be detached, and is also the part containing the eventual slash element)   
Disclaimer: Just about everything belongs to Tolkien except for the order I put the words in.  
Author's Notes: This will try to remain faithful to the books and assorted appendixes up until the beginning of the story, but after that, it more or less becomes an AU and ignores everything the appendixes say happened after 4044 in the Shire Reckoning.   
  
***  
  
Once, they had been many. Spawned in light, but forged in darkness, they had swarmed like black locusts over the earth, rending forest and hill with strong and hateful arms to cut their paths. They had come in their thousands, in their thousands upon thousands, and they had burnt the tall cities of Men and slaughtered the Dwarves in their deepest mines. Even Elves, blessed and gilded, had fallen to their twisted black blades. All creatures knew and feared their name, and great armies threw down their arms to their battle-cry alone. They were the servants of Sauron, the thronging nightmare of Middle Earth, and the screaming death of the Free Peoples.   
  
They were the Orcs.   
  
Once, they had been many, but now the Third Age was gone. The One Ring had been destroyed, and with it, the master of their making, and they had been left, leaderless and frightened before the armies of the Heir of Isildur. Uncountable numbers died that day on the doorstep of Mordor, but uncountable more were still to die. For the King soon claimed his throne, and out of the land of Gondor came riders and foot soldiers, hunting the scattered bands of Orcs with a vengeful fury. The sons of Dwarves reclaimed their secret mountain places, and the very trees and beasts of the wood struck out against them. Shattered, they fell upon each other in a maelstrom of blame, and many those who were not destroyed by Man or Dwarf or beast fell at the claws and blades of their kinsmen.   
  
Once, they had been many. Now, they were few.   
  
Few, but not gone, not yet. For once, long ago in a time before memory, they had been Elves, and their immortality remained as a lingering curse against their malformed flesh. Twenty-five years had passed since the destruction of the Ring, but the handful of Orcs who had not yet been cut down still slithered in the shadows and dark places. There they would live, terribly weakened, feeding off of carrion and soft, helpless prey, until something had mercy to kill them, for Sauron, in his wisdom of orchestrating their misery, had stayed their mutilated hands from the ability to take their own lives. Once many and terrible, they would eventually become nothing more than the basis for a hundred peasant rumours, for now and again a newborn lamb gone missing, or a child frightened by a hideous face scuttling in the shadows outside their window at night.   
  
Such was the fate of their race, but such was not the fate accepted by all their kind. Four survived the carnage of the Black Gate and clung together, crawling and keening in search of the force that had stripped away their glory. For twenty-five years, they slunk through the land of Gondor, traveling weak and furtive fathoms with each night rather than once-striding miles. Every so often, they dared to creep into the towns of Men, and there they listened at the windows at homes and taverns, wherever songs of glory were sung. And they heard the song of Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom. They heard of Samwise the True, and of the Shire, far distant home of the Halflings. They heard, and thus, twenty years after the destruction of the Ring, dark minds resolved to turn their aimless wanderings towards the north and west, towards Eriadod and the place where the Halflings lived.  
  
One of their number fell to wolves in the Misty Mountains, but the three remained, and now their hearts were bent on the Halflings who had born the Ring. Winter after winter, they crawled their black way north, their broken minds never resting, until they reached the forests of Chetwood outside the town of Bree. There they found an old Man living wretched in the woods, blind and bent-backed, and he named himself to be Bill Ferny, and told them eagerly of how Frodo of the Nine Fingers had vanished some many years ago, but how Samwise the True still lived in the old hobbit-hole they called Bag End. The three rejoiced over this news and for the first time in twenty-five years, they filled their bellies with Man-flesh.   
  
Now they had come at last to the Shire, scampering in the shadows of gardens and walls. The strongest among them carried a thin, sharp blade, taken those many years ago at the battle of Helm's Deep, but dipped now in a toxin purchased at dear cost from a brigand from the South. They would strike the flesh of the Hated One, and he would die slowly, burning from within with a terrible cold fire that would stretch his agony over the many months as purchase for the withering death of their race.   
  
Three shadows crawled through the garden gate of Bag End, and thin, crooked fingers pushed open one round window. Two of the Orcs hid themselves in the lush cover of the well-planted gardens, busy hands tearing at the roots of the plants, but one slipped through into the darkened room, the blade shining bright in his grasp.   
  
Looking about, he saw within that room a row of small beds with forms curled oblivious beneath the comforters, and in the nearest one, a tiny Halfling child, curled tight in sleep with one small thumb tucked in its mouth. A cracked smile broke over the face of the Orc. A child of the Hated One, the companion to the Ring-Bearer. The blade was placed lightly between his teeth. He would tear the flesh of this infant with his claws, and the screams would bring the Hated One, and he would have his prey. And perhaps, should he be truly fortunate, at last he might even have his death.   
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	2. 

***  
  
"Nassssty hobbit. Nassty rude hobbit sleeps. He sleepses while they comes and hurts. Hurts his Precioussss. Hurts his Precious, and this hurtses nasty hobbit. Very good, yessssss...he sleeps...sleepses..." He knew that voice. It was a voice he had hoped to someday forget, but it had been dredged from the corners of nightmarish memory now, and it brought with it a terrible dread, a sense of the great evil that had lurked through the land where Stinker hissed and crawled. That evil was here now, haunting him, terrorizing his thoughts, his...his dreams. His sleepses. No.   
  
Sam's eyes flew open, half-expecting to see that spidery form perched on the edge of his bed, withered hands outstretched in greedy hate. But he was not to be found. The coverlet stretched harmless before him, contoured only by the familiar shapes of his and Rosie's legs beneath, yet his hand...his right hand was knotted in the linen at his side, as if grasping for the hilt of a sword. Merely a nightmare, of course, and not the first he'd had, but this time, he was reluctant to release his fingers from their futilely defensive knot. There was something different this time, something wrong. The dreams had not troubled him for years, but always they had been memories before: images of places he had been, things he had seen too dreadful for the eye of a simple gardener. This time there had been no images, only the voice, that hated voice, warning in his threatening, babbling tongue; just the voice and the feeling of evil.  
  
Yes. That was the difference. The voice was gone, but that oppressive darkness still lay like a sodden blanket over the room, turning the familiar shadows to pitch and raising the hair on his feet. Something was near. Something of the old darkness, thought destroyed. Sam pushed back the covers and slid carefully out of bed, unwilling to wake Rosie just yet. It was likely, after all, that it was nothing more than the aftertaste of a particularly unpleasant nightmare, but the sickening familiarity was strong in him, and he bolted the door to their bedroom behind him as he stepped out into the hall.   
  
He heard nothing, saw no flitting shadows, but as his silent feet padded slowly down the corridors of Bag End, he suddenly froze, his stomach clenching in horrified recognition. It was a smell, faint as the first breeze of spring, but not at all as welcome. It had been years since he had scented its like, but it was burned into the dark places of his mind, seared there in the Mines of Moria and the fields of Mordor in an indelible mark instantly recalled and despised.   
  
Oddly, he was not afraid. Perhaps the shreds of the dream still clung to him, lulling him with the promise of unreality, or perhaps it was simply the forgotten strength of that long-ago quest had re-awakened the need to have no fear when doing things that needed the doing, but it was with perfectly steady step that he slipped into the parlor and silently opened the trunk where the relics of that bygone life were kept. He lifted out a silken cloth, delicately embroidered with Elf-Runes, but as he unwrapped the fabric, the fear came rushing down upon him with breath-snatching ferocity.   
  
Sting was glowing.   
  
Not merely a glimmer around the edges, but a clear blue flame lit the old sword, and Sam felt as if time itself had frozen into one moment of impossible horror. They were here. Not merely lurking, as he had half-thought, somewhere in Eriadod at the edges of his dream's perception, but *here.* In his...  
  
Oh, no. No. Not in his house. Not here. Not with his -   
  
A sound pierced the night, high and thin and ululating with utter terror. His son. His Tom. Screaming. The sound galvanized Sam, and Sting flashed high and bright as he turned, feet flying swifter now than they ever had in his youth. He knew what had come, and in his heart, he knew why, and he knew that they would spare no mercy for his little ones.   
  
He flew against the nursery door, but it was locked from within, and he staggered back, stunned but wild-eyed as Tom's screaming redoubled, and now he could hear the others crying as well. Daisy's voice came through clear and desperate, wrenching in her choked attempts at control as she begged "Don't hurt him, please, please don't hurt him, he's just a baby!"   
  
Sam could hear more feet coming now, hobbit-feet, and he turned sharply, just seeing in the darkness the white-robed form of his wife, halted in mid-step by the strange glow that had come over Sting, her face transfixed in disbelief and fear. He put his shoulder to the door again, his voice thick with sudden command. "Go to the store-rooms. Take the other children. Lock yourselves in. NOW!!"   
  
Again he threw himself at the door, but again it held, and he cursed the hobbits who had ever built Bag End so well. He thought he could hear something else now, a shuffling, a dark laughter, and he took a step back to ram once more, unconscious of torn flesh or night-shirt, nearly blind with fury and despair. Sam drove forward, bellowing madly, but another figure had appeared out of the darkness now, and the strong, lithe shoulder of his eldest son was beside his own, and Sam saw to his wonder that Frodo carried his own old sword, the blade still gleaming with care.   
  
The scream stopped sharp as father and son burst through the door of the nursery, their final blow nearly knocking the sturdy wood from its hinges. Sam's eyes swept the beds with desperate speed: the young ones, Daisy, Primrose, Bilbo, Ruby, and Robin, were all safe, clutching together and sobbing with fear but unbloodied, and for a moment, his heart lifted. But Sting all but throbbed with a sharp blue light, and his eyes soon fell on the last bed in the row, and the fire in his heart turned to chill.   
  
There, in the thin moonlight that shined through the open window, crouched a form dark and malshapen, clad in filthy rags with bowed knees and thin, grasping arms. Those arms clutched Tom now, dangling him by one arm as his little face clenched red with pain and fear. The grotesque, broken teeth smiled at him now, and it raised a thin blade, running it down the boy's night-shirt. The edge was razor sharp, and the cloth parted like water, but for the moment, the flesh beneath was unscathed. Tom hiccuped, then began to cry again, but he still offered no other struggle. The fingers of the grasping arm were dug in deep.   
  
The beast shook the child at him like a dog with a rat and hissed low in it's throat, but Sam's voice was calm and cold. "Frodo. Take the others." He could hear the rustling of bedclothes and the padding of little feet as the children ran from the room, Robin gulping back sobs so hard that he could hear her stumble as she fled. He spared no glance, however, all his attention fixed on the creature. "What do you want from me?"  
  
The light of Sting seemed to burn its tiny, bulbous eyes, and it flinched back, hissing with every breath. "I am Ghashrot, of the battle of the Black Gates, one of the last of my kind. And you...you are Samwise. Samwise the Halfling. Samwise the Hated. Samwise the Cruel. Samwise, companion of the Ring-Destroyer, the Orc-Killer, the Dark-Slayer." A nearly palpable wave of hatred flowed through the words, and Sam's fingers tightened on Sting.   
  
"I am Samwise. If you come for me, then put down the boy and come."   
  
His answer came in a wad of black spittle that hit thick on the floor at his feet. Ghashrot shook Tom quickly, almost reflexively, and Sam stiffened as he heard the boy whimper and saw a thin trickle of blood begin to trail down the smooth plump flesh of his arm. "Drop the Elf-Blade! It burns!" Again he shook the boy, and the trickle widened, Tom's whimper growing into soft sobs that shook his tiny chest.   
  
Sting clattered to the floor.   
  
For a moment, Ghashrot only stared at the fallen blade, but then his grin widened into a hideous grimace, and his hand released, dropping Tom heavily. The boy struck hard, but to Sam's relief, still had sense enough to crawl as quickly as his tiny hands and knees could take him to the farthest corner of the room. Sam moved instinctively to go to him, but before he had taken a single step, a fearful weight crashed into him, knocking him to the floor with a blow that sent red stars glaring through his vision as his head cracked loud on the floorboards. The Orc's foul stench choked him, and its limbs seemed as those of a spider as Sam grappled desperately, trying to keep the flash of the blade away from his flesh as they rolled and howled in the dimness of the home that had once been his refuge.   
  
Then Ghashrot's arm seemed to bend double, and he wrenched the thin limb free of Sam's grasp, moving quick and sharp as lightning. The blade glistened briefly, and then Sam heard himself scream as it buried itself in his flesh, the sharp point imbedding in the wood beneath and pinning his arm to the floorboards. The pain was unthinkable, like molten lead poured over an open wound, and the scream died in a thin rasp almost as soon as it was formed in his throat. A dangerous blackness closed heavily on the edges of his vision, and he struggled to find wits to continue the struggle.  
  
He could hear Ghashrot's gloating, gurgling chuckle, but then suddenly, the Orc's voice rose in a terrible keening shriek, and Sam dimly saw what seemed to be a ray of blue light stabbing straight through his heart. He tried to turn his head, but even as the pain overwhelmed him, he somehow knew.   
  
Frodo. His son had come back, and he had taken up his father's fallen blade and used it to kill this evil thing. A brave thing, he should praise him, but no...not yet, because the blade was still glowing. He had to tell Frodo that there were still more of them, that orcs never came alone, but even as the tweenager pulled Sting from Ghashrot's torn chest and he opened his mouth for warning, the fire flared, and with it came the blackness.   
  
To Be Continued 


	3. 

***  
  
"Who is thumping about my door at this hour?" Peregrin Took shuffled blearily towards the insistent pounding that had so harshly wakened him from a warm and pleasant bed, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand. The knocking was getting louder, and he heard a bedroom door open and shut behind him. So Faramir had been awakened too. Diamond was more lucky. His wife could sleep through quite nearly anything. Including this iron-fisted visitor. "Who is it?" He called again, but no one answered, and he frowned. A child's prank, most likely, harmless enough, but still....  
  
He drew back the latch and opened the door on a memory.   
  
A hobbit stood there, true enough, but the moonlight glittered off a shirt of bright golden mail, and his mantle fluttered in the night breeze, rich but nearly invisible with the cleverness of its Elvish weave. His helm concealed his face, the gleaming metal emblazoned with a silver star, the sign of King Elessar, and the sword that hung at his side was housed in a scabbard of unmistakable exquisite craftsmanship. A strip of humble home-weave bound his right arm to his breast, as though he were injured, but his bearing was strong and youthful.   
  
Pippin gaped. Was he still dreaming? That armour... "Sam?"   
  
"No." A gauntleted hand pushed back the helm's visor, and though the face that gazed back at him had much of his old friend's younger look to it, time had not indeed chosen to begin marching backwards. "It's me, Master Took, Frodo. Something's happened at Bag End!"   
  
"That much I can well see!" He ran a hand though his hair, still unable to tear his eyes away. "Where is Sam?"  
  
"At home, Master Took, and hurt. Something came out of the night and attacked little Tom, and father was hurt when he tried to fight it off. It was..." He paused, his plain features twisting in disgust as he seemed to search for words. "...broken and black, and look!" Frodo slipped Sting from its sheath, and the keen edges glittered blue in the dimness.   
  
"Orcs!" Pippin felt his heart grow suddenly cold, as if the hand of darkness had reached across the space of years and laid it's bitter touch on his flesh. He turned to Faramir, who stood silent just behind him. "Wake your mother and light every lamp in the hole. Bank the fire. Hurry!" Turning back, he put a gentle arm around young Frodo's shoulder and drew him in, shutting and bolting the door behind them. "And you, you're wounded also."   
  
A dark shadow fell over Frodo's eyes, and he quickly reached up with his left hand, untying the cloth and letting his arm fall. To Pippin's surprise, the limb was unmarred and flexed freely. "I used Sting to kill the one that attacked us after it had knocked father down, but it still glowed, and I remember your stories always said they were cowards, never attacking alone. Mother told me to ride to you for help, Master Took, and I thought that if the Orc-things were from father's adventures, and I wore his old armour and bound my arm, then they might follow, thinking I was he, and leave the others."   
  
It was a ploy that had worked, judging by the blue flame on the blade. Pippin shook his head at the faint glimmer of fear behind the bravery in Frodo's eyes. It would seem that Sam's courage had passed down well enough, but any measure of sense was another matter entirely. He remembered his own first encounter with Sauron's filthy legions and how grateful he had been to have the strength of the Fellowship around him. Frodo was far luckier than he knew. "You clever little fool." Frodo smiled faintly, removing the helm to reveal curls dampened flat with sweat. "But you must tell me quickly now, how many were there? And Sam, how badly is he wounded?"  
  
"Only one that came in, Master Took, and as of the wound, I don't know rightly. It took him through the flesh of his arm, here," he tapped a point halfway between shoulder and elbow, "but it didn't bleed at all, and the edges are black, as though the blade had been red hot. He's in dreadful pain."   
  
"But he's awake?"   
  
"When I left, yes, but he's been in and away. I fear poison." His voice shook a little, but Pippin pretended not to notice.   
  
"Possible, quite possible." Pippen had taken his own silver mail from its place of honour on the wall, but it proved a bit more snug than expected. Comfortable life in the Shire had led him to grow a bit sideways, as hobbits were wont, and the mail had been made for a time when he was hard-fought, half-fed, and still in his tweens. It was only with a bit of squirming quite unbecoming the Took that he got it on again, but not the first sign of giggle crossed Frodo's usually merry face. He understood, as did Pippin, that it was for show as much as protection, gambling that these fragments of nightmares would pause before taking on one clad as a knight of Minas Tirith.   
  
He buckled on his sword, unsheathing the blade and feeling its heft again. "The shadow-blades have gone, and for that we can be grateful, Frodo, but there is still evil under the land. With Sauron destroyed, there is no great hand to wield it, but lesser hands would still grasp at its edges. There is no telling what the creeping fingers of the Orcs have managed to snatch up." Catching the dangerous brightness in Frodo's eyes, he slid the sword back into its sheath. "But Sam was always stronger than he looked...strongest of us all, some said, and never was the day I'd argue them."   
  
Diamond and Faramir had moved quickly, and the hole was now filled with light, the smoldering warming-fire coaxed to roaring brilliance. Pippin kissed his wife's cheek. "Stay next to the fire, Dia, keep it bright, and keep the door tight-bolted. If I do not return by dawn, wait for the light and then ride swiftly to Long Cleeve and stay with your family there, keeping the same watch. Something terrible has come out of our past, Sam's and Merry's and mine, and you must keep far away from us until it is over."   
  
Taking a knife from his belt, he gave it to Faramir. The light of the fire reflected off the polished blade into the boy's eyes, but there was no fear there, only an innocent adventure-lust that Pippin himself well remembered. Seeing it now, however, it frightened him, and he clutched his son tightly by the shoulders. "Take this. Use it if you must, but run if you can. Run, and don't be a fool. The Orcs would gladly cut you down for sport alone, and to spite me besides."   
  
Faramir nodded solemnly, belting the weapon incongruously over his night-shirt. "Yes, father."  
  
"You can send Rose and the children on to Long Cleeve as well, Pippin." Diamond's voice was strong and calm, and Pippin felt a sudden wave of terrible dread that something would happen to her if he dared leave. "We'll take good care of them there, and as soon as it comes light, I'll send my brother to Brandybuck and tell Merry of this."   
  
"Yes, if he doesn't yet know through other means." Pippin turned to Frodo, who had replaced the helm on his head again, but he had to look quickly away. The boy's eyes were vulnerable, and he didn't want to inflict on him the worries that crawled in his memory; images of a rain of severed heads, a despair that wet the cheeks of the bravest warriors, and the battered bodies of two dear friends scraped more dead than alive from the slopes of Mt. Doom.   
  
Putting one hand on the hilt of his sword, he drew back the bolt on the door. "Come, Frodo, we'll ride hard. The evil has returned, and dear Sam needs me."   
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	4. 

***  
  
"Hush my little one, hush you dear,  
  
The night wind whispers gentle by.  
  
The storm shan't roar with mother here,  
  
And soon the sun will rise."  
  
Rosie murmured the familiar words quietly into the darkness of the store- room, rocking slowly back and forth as her fingers smoothed gentle comfort through Tom's silky curls. He had stopped crying long ago, and now his breathing had slowed so softly that she knew he was at last asleep in her arms. Still she sang, eyes closed, nestling her cheek warm against her son's head. There was a strange smell about him, a sharp, bitter odor like burnt pitch over his own fresh, wholesome baby scent, and that smell seemed to keep the fear bright in Rosie's heart, moulding her arms to him in a bond that she wasn't sure she could ever bear to break again.  
  
She had thought the fear could be over now. There had been dark times for the Shire once, dark and terrible times under Sharkey, but that had been a misery of weeks only, and Sam and the others had come and chased it off certain sure. Sam had seen darker times than that, she knew, times so black during the year he was gone that even now they sometimes flickered shadows to the depths of his eyes, but even he had said that things had changed now. He had promised her that they were in a new time now, a Fourth Age, and it had seemed like his talk of a world transformed was true.  
  
Never had the Shire been more beautiful than when it was reborn under her husband's gentle hands, and their own home had seemed to catch more of that strange new fortune than any other. Thirteen children they had, each strong and healthy, not a fell mark or ill constitution among them. The old Gammers had wondered at first at her own resilience, but each one had been carried and borne so easily that Rosie was less worn even now than her own mother had been after only five. The children were beautiful, and Sam, oh but Sam was everything that she had ever dreamed of as a lass: kind and hard-working and handsome.  
  
Yet Sam had secrets in his past, secrets that no simple gardener's son should have known. They were secrets she had learned not to ask about, because it was when she asked that the shadows came, the shadows and the long times spent with that book that made her wake in the night to find his shoulders shaking soft and silent against her back. Those secrets had crawled out of the book now, crawled out of his nightmares and hidden tears to come rip at their beautiful life and frighten Rosie more than she thought possible.  
  
"Mum?" She turned, even though by her own insistence there was no light in the store-room and she could make out little more than a slightly deeper area of darkness that marked the source of Pip's voice. "It's Dad. I think he might be waking up."  
  
As if to confirm his words, she heard a soft moan from the winter mattresses where she and Frodo had lain Sam, a rustle of movement that sent her heart flying to her throat. "Rose. Take the baby." She waited until she felt Rose's strong young arms wrapped securely around Tom before she let him go, but even then it felt as if part of her heart were being peeled away, and she was grateful that Rose kept close behind her, so close that she could feel the hem of her daughter's nightdress brush against her own.  
  
"Sam?" Rosie knew that store-room as well in the dark as she did the light, and she did not hesitate as she moved to her husband's side. She could feel him shift towards her as her weight bowed the side of the mattresses, and she felt a knot of hope gather thick in her stomach. He had opened his eyes twice since that thing had hurt him, but both times he had seemed locked into another world, hearing and seeing nothing but his own pain. "Dear Sam, can you hear me?"  
  
There was a pause, a pause in which she swore her heart didn't beat, and then a soft, sucking intake of breath. "Rosie?"  
  
And then his hand was on her knee, and she was grabbing it hard in both of hers, wrapping her sturdy fingers around it, bringing it to her lips and kissing it over and over again. She was laughing now, a strange, hitching laugh that came with salt moisture on her cheeks. "Oh, I'm here, Sam. I'm here."  
  
"I…" There was a fear in his voice that cut even through the relief and squeezed cold on Rosie's heart.  
  
"Sam?"  
  
"Am…" She felt the slightest pull on her hand, and leaned closer, until she could feel his breath warm on her cheek. His voice had dropped to the faintest of whispers, but even in that she could hear that same strange fear, that vulnerability she had never imagined from one as strong as her Sam. "It's so dark. Am I blind, Rosie?"  
  
"Oh, Sam." She stroked his cheek gently. It was a bit warm under her touch, perhaps fever-warm, but it was hard to quite tell. "No, not blind. Here…" She raised her voice, calling out so that the others could hear. "Merry, get the lantern. Damper it down as far as you can, but bring it here…and do remember to shield the match."  
  
"The children?"  
  
"The children are here, Sam. Here and safe."  
  
"All of them? Tom…and Frodo?"  
  
"I have Tom right here, Dad." Rose's voice came gentle out of the darkness, then the match flared; the tiny light, shielded even as it was by Merry's hand, still seeming like the sun itself even for virtue of catching outlines in the blackness. Rosie motioned to Rose, and she came and sat with them on the edge of the mattresses, Tom still cradled peaceful in her arms. "He's sleeping fine. Hardly a mark on him but a bit of a scrape on his knee, and a nick or two in his arms - that's not even as bad as he gets himself running about."  
  
"Let me touch him…" The lantern was lit now, and as Merry brought it near, Rosie could see Sam shifting as if to sit up. Suddenly, he stopped, looking down at his bandaged arm as though it were a foreign thing. "My arm."  
  
His face shadowed into sudden age by the lantern, Merry frowned. "Does it hurt too badly?"  
  
"No. It burns, but not so much. I just - " A faint smile came over his face, reassuring to the children but a lie too transparent for Rosie's eyes. "Ah, it's only a bit weak. You keep Tom near, Rose. Best let him sleep." Sam's head lifted from the pile of cloaks serving as a pillow. "Frodo?"  
  
"I sent him for help, Sam, to Pippin. He's on Little Bill, and he took Mr. Baggins's magic Elf-sword besides. He should be back soon." Rosie could tell that Sam fought to remain expressionless at this news, but the fear was clear in his eyes.  
  
"Then he's still out there." He licked his lips, his hand tightening on hers. "Rosie, they aren't all gone. It was more than the one. Do you remember the stories? When the sword glows blue…"  
  
"I remember, Sam, and so does Frodo, but we can't well tuck ourselves down here forever, and Merry and Pippin are the only ones besides you who have ever dealt with these evils before. Frodo's a strong lad, Sam. He'll be well." He had to be well. Rosie had no other choice but to send him, and if some hurt were to befall him because of it, she could never forgive herself. No, Frodo had to come back well.  
  
"How long ago?"  
  
"Some hours, I'm not quite sure how many, but I think they should be here any moment now." Sam seemed about to protest again for a moment, then suddenly his eyes closed, a web of pained lines squeezing tight from the corners as she saw his face seem to fall as pale as death itself. She gasped. "Merry! Uncover the light!"  
  
All colour had indeed fled from her husband's face, and she watched in helplessness as his body began to twitch in strange, tiny fever-spasms, his hand crushing her fingers so tight together that the pain sent tears of its own to mingle with her tears of despair. Rose cried out, pointing, but Rosie had already seen what her daughter had tried to warn her against, and she called Robin quickly to her side, taking his prized pocket-knife and using it to cut away the bandage that had begun to send whispers of black smoke acrid and harsh into the closeness of the store-room. Beneath it, the wound itself seemed to have grown slightly, still less than a finger's width and half that in length, yet now the edges were not just black, but crumbling slightly like the dry, charred remnants of a log thrown into a fire, smoke rising in place of the blood that had never flowed from the wound.  
  
Horrified, Rosie grabbed for the lantern with her free hand, pinching out the light before any of the smaller children saw. Even still, she could smell that horrible pitch-sharp smell, and she let herself fall gently against her husband's chest, pressing her own body to him as though she could still this terrible unrest. She could say nothing, do nothing, but her heart screamed into the darkness that had invaded her world.  
  
TBC 


	5. 

For header information, see part 1  
  
***  
  
"Will Bill be all right, do you suppose?"  
  
"He had sense enough to run once, I only think he may be wondering why you didn't have sense enough to stay with him." Pippin's voice was light, but his gaze moved quick against stone walls and lush gardens, keen for skulking shadows or glinting eyes. They had been surprised once, but now he held his arms tight around the lad wedged into the saddle in front of him, a patch of Orc's blood still wet on the mail beneath his palm.  
  
A bird cawed harsh, and Frodo stiffened, a sharp cry slipping from him before he could catch it back. His body seemed as taut as a drumhead, but after what seemed like an eternity he relaxed enough to begin to move again with the motion of the pony, his shoulders nonetheless still tight and high. "What if there are more out there?"  
  
He looked down at the scabbard at Frodo's side, but the beautifully crafted metal showed no hint of blue fire from the blade beneath. "If there are, they aren't close." Pippin gave Frodo a slight squeeze. It was intended to be reassuring, but instead, the lad shied away, almost as if in pain. He frowned. "Are you sure you weren't hurt, Frodo?"  
  
"Only sore…" He paused, then his voice was surprisingly free of shame as he admitted, "…and frightened, Master Took. Quite frightened."  
  
"You have a right to be, but you handled yourself well." He forced a smile into his voice. "Two Orcs in one night: I fancy there's never been a hobbit what could say that at your age."  
  
"I don't much like the distinction."  
  
The sorrow to the words struck him harder than he expected, and he sucked in a breath of night air, hissing cool and quick between his teeth. "No one does, or should, I suppose."  
  
They rode quietly for a few more minutes, the steady rhythm of the pony's trot and the soft sighs of the wind through leaves seeming almost deafening in this poverty of words. At last they rounded the familiar corner to Bag End, and Pippin snatched at the reins, pulling up sharply in surprise. The front door stood open with no sign of light or movement within, even the moonlight daring to intrude no farther than a thin silver arc across the threshold. On that same threshold, and drawing a ragged trail down the stoop and into the shrubbery, a wet, dark trail gleamed, and Pippin felt a sharp prickle of fear trace up his spine. "Ho, there, now! Did you leave the door open when you left?"  
  
"Locked and bolted, I'm sure of it." The lad's voice was tight and thin.  
  
"Sting -" But Frodo had already drawn the sword, whisper-quick and silent, and the only light upon the blade was the soft, silvered glint of the moon and stars. The sight brought no ease to Pippin's heart. "Still, we should be careful. There are many dark things Sting can't warn us of." He slid off of the pony, never taking his eyes off the doorway as Frodo dismounted beside him.  
  
"No!" The word wrenched hard from Frodo's throat as he saw the dark stain, and he began to run forward. Pippin's arm lashed out, grabbing him with a fistful of Elven mantle and pulling him stumbling back.  
  
He turned the lad to face him, staring hard into panicked eyes. "Don't think on them right now, Frodo." He kept one hand gripped on Frodo's shoulder, leaving the pony untethered as he opened the garden gate with the other. "Just stay close."  
  
No foul shapes leaped at them as they walked up the path, but Pippin ached to see that many of the flowerbeds had been harshly trampled, lovingly tended annuals and long-flowering bulbs uprooted and scattered by hateful, destructive hands. He kept carefully clear of the stain on the steps, but he felt a faint note of hope when the sickly familiar burnt-pitch scent of Orc's blood reached his nose instead of the dreaded copper-sweetness of hobbits. Slowly, he used the tip of his sword to push the door the remainder of the way open, waiting poised for a moment before daring to step within.  
  
"Oh!" The cry came from Frodo as he stepped in behind Pippin, and the older hobbit felt a stab of sympathy. He knew what it felt like to have one's home violated, and he only hoped that the beasts had not bothered to trail their destruction through the entire hole. As it was, the blood trail wound its way thick over the floor of the entry-hall, but there was so much more than that. Curtains had been torn down and, by the smell, pissed upon, sharp and cruel claws had gouged the walls, mathoms and mementos thrown to the ground and shattered, and even Bilbo's old hat-rack had three of the pegs broken off.  
  
He shook his head sadly. "A fine mess they've left." He followed the blood trail back down the hall to what he recognized as the door to the bedroom shared by the littlest Gamgee children. The door had clearly been forced, but Pippin was relieved to see that the destruction in the entry- hall had not apparently been inflicted upon the bedroom as well. The trail culminated in a thick, dark pool, and he circled it, taking in the vague outline of a spindle-limbed form writ in blood. "It looks like they took the body of the one you killed before. A pity. I'd have wished to see the knife."  
  
"We did keep that, Master Took." Frodo's voice seemed steadier now, tinged slightly with anger, but when Pippin looked up, the lad's face was inscrutable. "As soon as Mum saw the wound, she fancied there was something unnatural about it, and that the blade might be to blame."  
  
"Pippin? Frodo?"  
  
He turned quickly at the voice, and a grin of shattering relief flew over his face as he saw a plump and white-gowned figure standing in the doorway, a candle trembling slightly in one hand. Even with features cast into fearful contour by the flickering light, it seemed like the sudden appearance of an angel in such a dark and morbid scene, banishing the dread of a more terrible carnage that had crawled unspoken through Pippin's mind. "Rosie?"  
  
"Mum…" Sting clattering unheeded to the floor as Frodo all but flew across the room, flinging himself into his mother's hungry embrace. Somehow, Rosie had the presence of mind to hold the candle's flame safe above her son's curly head, but as soon as Pippin took the light, both of her arms enfolded him as though trying to push the truth of his safety into her heart by force. Tears shone bright on her cheeks, her face twisted into an expression ripping sweet as she crooned and sobbed broken syllables of comfort and grief, a maternal benediction nonsensical in eloquence.  
  
Her hands at first tangled busily in his hair, stroking and petting as he simply held to her, tight and motionless, but gradually, they slowed along with her tears, smoothing down at last to his shoulders. "You're shaking, are you -" She pushed aside the cloak, but when her fingers found the cold links there, she jerked back, her eyes wide. "Lor', but what are you wearing?!"  
  
Pippin could see both in the sudden rush of anger in Rosie's eyes and the hot flush of Frodo's cheeks that this was like to be a fair mess, and he stepped quickly forward, sheathing his sword and placing his hand on Rosie's shoulder. "We'll talk of that later. The children, and Sam…"  
  
Rosie took a deep breath, and as she looked up at him, it was as if he could see her gathering her heart up tidy again. "The children are fine, Pippin." Before he could ask further of Sam, she looked quickly back towards her son, her expression suddenly shielded. "Frodo, take that horrible mail off and go down to the store-room at once. Your father wants to see you." He hesitated, but her eyes flashed with unmistakable maternal command, and the lad was gone within moments.  
  
For a few seconds, Rosie's eyes remained dull and emotionless upon the doorway, but when she turned back to Pippin, he could see a weight in those brown eyes, a weight hanging fresh and heavy on this usually bright and cheerful matron. He frowned, barely daring to whisper. "Sam?"  
  
She nodded, touching one hand lightly to her forehead as if an ache was gathering there. "Oh, Pippin, it's bad. He's awake now, clear-eyed, and he'll tell you it's naught but a flesh wound, mark my words. And that it is, I suppose, just through the meat of his arm, but…" Rosie shook her head slowly. "…there's more about it."  
  
Pippin set the candle down on the wardrobe, putting one arm gently across her shoulders. She all but fell into him, and he suddenly cursed the chain mail that lay cold beneath her grasping fingers. He bit one glove away, stroking his bare fingers through her hair. He realized then that it was loose, falling near to her waist in rich sandy curls only just beginning to dust with silver. In the twenty-five years he had known Rosie Gamgee, it had never been anything but carefully braided. "Frodo tells me that it didn't bleed, that the edges are black, as if charred."  
  
He felt her nod against him. "Aye, like a terrible burn, but without any red or naught around it. And it's crumbling now, just a little, at the edges, the flesh just flaking like it's gone to ash, and a bit of smoke, too."  
  
"And you say he's awake?"  
  
"Now. He was in a fever-sleep at first, opening his eyes a few times, but never really seeing…he seems better now, though twice he's had - I don't know right what to call them - fits of sorts, just a few minutes, but they seem to hurt him so, and he goes dreadful pale, Pippin. Terrible, dreadful pale, just like a dead thing. Do you know of such things?" She drew back, her face tear-streaked but suddenly fresh with hope. "Perhaps in the war…"  
  
Reluctantly, he shook his head, hugging her close again as he saw that hope dashed from her features with such a simple, cruel motion. This darker description of Sam's wound hung terrible and uneasy on Pippin's heart, and he had to swallow hard to keep the cold lump in his own throat from seeping into tears. The blood-painted pattern of death seemed to mock him from the floor, and he closed his eyes, patting Rosie gently on the back. "Come, Rosie…let us go to him now. We shall see what I can do."  
  
To Be Continued 


	6. 

***  
  
They welcomed him like a conquering hero. The older ones pounded his back, ruffled his hair, hugged him until his face flushed scarlet as the little ones cheered and clung about his knees. Even Merry kissed his cheek and embraced him fondly, the normally rivaling roommates now beaming with brotherly affection that Sam somehow suspected would last precisely as long as it took Merry to realize that Frodo had borrowed his trousers for the occasion.  
  
Sam watched the children from where he lay, smiling quietly at the happy reunion. He could well wait his own turn, and it was enough just to see that Frodo had returned alive and well. More than enough.  
  
A glint of silver caught the corner of his eye, and as he turned his head, a figure stepped forward, tall and broad and clad bright in silver and sable livery. Sam's heart grew heavy with sorrow as he recognized the visitor, finding the familiarity oddly almost as painful as any unexpected intrusion. That livery belonged to what should have been memories hung over mantles and tucked into chests, never to be donned again, but here they were, brought to flesh anew. Pippin came more fully into the light, kneeling at the makeshift bedside and removing his helm. He smiled, but there was a note of falsehood to the bright, still-young eyes. "Not too kindly of you, Sam, to go fighting the old battles without telling your friends."  
  
"Pippin." He forced a smile of his own in return, then his eye caught a splash of black blood on one sleeve, and he frowned. "Did you - "  
  
"Two more, on Bagshot Row, but Sting lies cold now, there are no more close." His voice was terse, his features guarded with the brief recount of the encounter, but then his face softened, and he reached out to lightly brush Sam's shoulder. "You've been hurt."  
  
"It's -"  
  
"Nothing but a flesh wound. Rosie warned me of that, but I know you better even than she, Sam. Come, then, let me see."  
  
He reached for the light, but Sam pulled away, clamping his good hand over the wound and gritting his teeth as he struggled to turn and cast the injured limb into shadow. Pippin was no healer, and there was little more his friend could do about such things beyond worry. Too many people were already doing that. "It's all right."  
  
"Just a look, that's all." Pippin's voice was playful, but his hands were strong and insistent, and Sam reluctantly let him pry the fingers away. As his hand drew back, Sam heard a gasp from his friend, and Pippin's face paled in the warm glow of the lantern, his eyes wide. "Sam!"  
  
"It's not as bad as it looks, truly. There's a bit of burning, but nothing more painful than a kettle-scald, I promise you." Sam managed a smile that lied soft to them both, but his words were the truth in point of fact. His arm didn't hurt that much, for pain wasn't exactly the thing to call it anymore. There was rather a tingling of sorts, uncomfortable and deep, as though the itch of boyhood poison ivy had made its way into his very blood. It crawled like that as high as his shoulder, almost as far down as his elbow, but below that, he could feel nothing. It was as if the limb simply ceased to exist, and only the sight of his fingers proved otherwise.  
  
Pippin's eyes were unmoved, and he grabbed the still fingers in his own hand, wrapping them tight in what looked ridiculously like the prelude to a bout of arm-wrestling. "Squeeze my hand."  
  
"Pippin…" A faint chuckle of perceptive discomfort rocked in his throat.  
  
"I said to squeeze my hand, and I shan't stop bothering at you until I'm quite satisfied, so don't you go holding back. I've seen what your hands can do, Samwise Gamgee." There was a gentleness to the last, almost a sense of grief, and for the first time, Sam began to truly fear what had happened to him. Unlike Rosie, Pippin had seen the marks of battle before, yet the same darkness was clear in his youthful old eyes as in her sweet ones.  
  
He concentrated on his fingers, willing them to bear down hard, but although his hands had once effortlessly twisted slim iron into garden trellises, no sign of pain appeared on Pippin's face. "I said to squeeze. Hard as you may!"  
  
"I am!"  
  
"Hard?"  
  
"Aye!" And he was, so hard that he could bare breathe for the effort, the word strangling out thickly as sweat slicked his face.  
  
"Well of you, then." Pippin pulled his hand away too easily, but though he said nothing more, Sam could read the truth in his eyes. Strangely, the realization that he was crippled didn't come as painful as he thought it would. He wondered almost detachedly whether he would ever have use of the hand again. It was his right hand, so the loss would make gardening quite the chore, but…what of his writing? Sam's breath caught in his throat as he thought of the Red Book so dearly entrusted to him. His letters were plenty clumsy as it was, how could he ever hope to keep his promise to Mr. Frodo now?  
  
He swallowed hard, unable to meet Pippin's sympathetic gaze any longer. Sam found himself watching the children again: Frodo now alone with Rose, brushing the back of his hand against Tom's round cheek as though he'd never seen anything more dear. Rosie called to him, then, and Sam's eyes narrowed as the lad moved. "He limps."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Frodo. He tells me he's all right, but he limps. Just a bit, but I can see it." He kept his voice pitched too low for the others to hear, but Pippin seemed to make no such effort in his reply.  
  
"He lies like his father, then, but you may at least trust me to say that he will be quite well. He was thrown from his pony when the Orcs came at us." He patted Sam's good shoulder. "Just a bit of a bruised rump and some jangled nerves, nothing more. He will be fine by morning, unlike you."  
  
Sam looked back towards his friend, sighing. "Pippin, I told you -"  
  
"I don't care what you told me. Can you see the wound for yourself, Sam?"  
  
"Not well, no." he admitted. It was on the outside of his arm, and without the ability to freely turn the limb, he could just discern a dark patch on his flesh in the dim light.  
  
"Then I shall tell you. It looks like a burnt crust of bread, it does." He brushed his fingers against the wound, and Sam hissed in a quick breath as the discomfort flared. Pippin's fingers, as he brought them to the light, were speckled with strange, dark flakes, almost like pepper. Curious, Sam touched the fingers of his good hand to Pippin's, capturing a few of the flakes and bringing them to his face to smell. The scent was like burnt pine tar, and Sam opened his mouth to ask what it was, but then the realization hit him, and he pulled away, craning his head over the side of the mattresses as he fought to keep from vomiting outright.  
  
It was his own flesh.  
  
Pippin's hands were gentle on his back, stroking in slow circles until the clenching, heaving protests of Sam's stomach had faded. Then his old friend's strong arms guided him back to lie flat again, brushing unruly curls from his brow. His face bore pure compassion, but over that, a determination that made Sam think bittersweet of a long-ago tweenager standing before an Elven Lord and refusing to be sent home. "There's something horrible wrong here, Sam, and not that it surprises me. No Orc would crawl his black way out of all those years just to take a cut at you. There's dark art at work here." He paused, pensive, then nodded slightly, as if to himself. "I should have you to Gondor. Minas Tirith."  
  
Sam blinked, suddenly wondering if he were delirious as well as maimed. "Gondor! Pippin, you're mad!"  
  
"Am I? If the Orcs are returning, the King must know."  
  
"The Orcs are not returning. You said yourself there are no more. Three is scarce an army."  
  
"After twenty-five years without any, it is enough!"  
  
His good hand waved dismissively. "It's nothing but revenge. The Orc that wounded me, Ghashrot, said as much. He called me the companion of the Ring- Destroyer, the Orc-Killer, the Dark-Slayer."  
  
"At least your reputation has lasted beyond the Shire."  
  
"Pippin!"  
  
The moment's tease faded from Pippin's tone, and only earnest sincerity remained. "Sam, I'm sure of it, and I know that when Merry sees, he'll say the same. There is some fell thing at work here, and Aragorn must know of it, even if it is only to say that you are right after all and that it is nothing."  
  
Sam closed his eyes, letting his head fall back into the pile of cloaks. Here he had thought Pippin had grown beyond such wild ideas. The devotion in his plan was touching, but utterly impractical. "It's three and a half month's journey to Gondor. This thing will be long healed by then. Shall I tell him I've come all that way to give the tale of three peevish Orcs and show him some small scar, or at worst perhaps a crippled hand?"  
  
"You shall tell him that you've come all this way that he may know that relics of the old Evil have surfaced in his lands."  
  
"Such a small thing, Pippin! Only a wound."  
  
There was a long pause, then Pippin's voice came softly, so softly that Sam had to strain to hear. "Only a Ring, Sam. Such a small thing."  
  
His eyes snapped open, and Sam struggled to sit up, anger biting sharp into his voice before he even realized it had flared in his heart. "It's not the same."  
  
Pippin only looked at him, and Sam shook his head in disbelief. "I can't leave Rosie and the children, not for so long. Seven, eight months I'd be gone. What if more of those things should come?"  
  
"We can stay with Merry."  
  
The voice was strong and sure as the dawn, and he twisted round, startled to see his wife standing there with Frodo in the shadows. "Rosie!"  
  
She came around into the lantern light, kneeling beside Pippin to take Sam's still, wounded hand into both of hers. The straining white at her knuckles proved that she gripped it with desperate strength, and he watched his own limp hand with dismay as she kissed it, then pressed it firm to her chest. Sam felt tears prick at his eyes. He should feel the beat of Rosie's heart, the despairing press of her fingers, the sweet softness of her bosom…but there was nothing. Nothing.  
  
Her eyes held his, and she released one hand to caress his cheek. He near melted into the touch, grabbing firm to her hand with the simple joy of feeling her flesh warm and live against his. Rosie made a small, broken sound, half between a chuckle and a sob, then she took a slow, deep breath, and the strength returned to her voice. "Do as Pippin says, Sam: go to Gondor. There's something horrible wrong with that wound, I can feel it in my heart. Something far beyond any herb known here to cure. Merry can protect us at Brandy Hall fine enough, and you know how he loves the children. You must go to Gondor."  
  
"Just fair as that?" He smiled, bringing her hand to his mouth and kissing it lightly. "You don't understand, Rosie. You've only been beyond the Shire once, but travel without a Royal entourage is hard."  
  
"I'm not as ignorant as all that." She pulled her hand back and tapped him on the nose, her eyes shadowed in the lantern light so that he could not entirely tell if she was in jest. "You'll take Frodo with you."  
  
Sam gasped sharp in horror, unable to believe what his wife had suggested. "No!"  
  
"Even if the wound's as little as you claim it, you cannot deny an extra set of hands would come in good use on such a journey."  
  
The calm sensibility to her voice was as obscene as black blood to his ears, and he shook his head. "He's a child, Rosie!"  
  
Pippin smiled thinly in a manner Sam supposed was meant to be reassuring, but indeed seemed only false. "He's not so much younger than I was."  
  
"And that's such a heartening thing? You near got yourself killed a dozen times, Pip!"  
  
Frodo came and knelt beside his mother, resting one hand on Sam's shoulder. "Dad -"  
  
He took the hand from his shoulder, pressing it tight in his grip as if he could somehow push sense back into his family. "No, Frodo. You stay here with your mother."  
  
Both Rosie and Pippin moved to speak at once, but Frodo silenced them both with a look of quiet authority that took all three adults by surprise. "Please!" His voice was soft, but rich with a quiet plea. "All of you…if I might speak a moment to him? Alone?"  
  
Pippin stood, nodding as he helped Rosie to her feet, one arm around her shoulders. "Aye." Sam watched the two figures recede into the shadows, joining the other children at muttered stories and games with that sudden cheer that parents can call so false and easy in times of darkness.  
  
Sam took a slow, deep breath, closing his eyes a moment to gather his thoughts. Opening them again, he found his son looking patiently at him, and in the flickering light, he was struck by how terribly young the lad seemed, his cheeks round and rosy, his eyes wide beneath unruly curls the same indefinable ginger as Sam's own. He looked perhaps fourteen in this light, but Sam knew him to be near twenty-two, already strong-backed and sure-handed in the garden. The years had passed in an eye-blink, and he knew that too quickly, Frodo would be grown. But not any more quickly than Sam could help it, nor any harder. "Frodo, you don't understand what that world can be like."  
  
A faint smile touched the bowed lips, but no humour was found in Frodo's eyes, and a tremour danced at the edges of his voice. "Dad, I'm scared. I've never even had nightmares as bad as what I saw and done tonight, but I've got to go with you. Mum and Master Took's right, whatever they've done to you, it needs help more than any hobbit knows to give, and if a King of Gondor is what it takes, then I reckon that's where we need to be going."  
  
"Pippin and I, perhaps, but not you. Not you, Frodo-lad."  
  
"What's Master Took to do if he's alone and you should take for the worse? Even simple cuts can turn to fever easy enough."  
  
Sam began to protest, then stopped, his head falling to his chest even as his eyes remained locked on his son. "I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you."  
  
"Why should it? You took Mum to Gondor with no troubles."  
  
He combed his fingers through Frodo's hair, drawing the boy's face down to settle a kiss on his forehead as he struggled to put words to the dark whisperings of his heart, to the warning that was crying by pain of love and blood on blackened scraps of flesh. "And before tonight, your brothers and sisters slept safe by open windows. Times change, Frodo. They change so fast and so dark sometimes that it snatches your breath away and you hardly know until those you love dearest are gone."  
  
Frodo captured his hand, holding it warm against his soft cheek. Sam felt a moisture on his fingertips, and the light glinted bright off the tears that beaded on the lad's lashes. "That's what I'm afraid of, Dad. I don't want to just wave you away and stand home hoping for the best."  
  
"You're still a lad."  
  
At this, Frodo lifted his chin slightly in defiance, his shoulders drawing back as Sam's fingers slid down to rest against his shoulder. "How old was Master Took when he banded to go on your quest?"  
  
Sam couldn't help but smile. "That's neither here nor there. He was older than you."  
  
"But not grown yet! And I fancy he knew less of what was out before him than I!" The defiance faded, and suddenly, there was only a lad's pure love in the bright eyes, and Frodo flung himself down onto Sam's chest as he had so often when he was small, arms tight around his father's neck as he buried his face against Sam's nightshirt, his words muffled but still painfully clear. "Let me follow, Dad. That's all I ask."  
  
His good arm stroking over Frodo's back, Sam could feel an odd pattern sweat-creased into the fabric of the lad's shirt, and his fingers puzzled over it as Frodo's body heaved with thick breaths barely short of sobs. Then his fingers recognized the linking, protective pattern, and his eyes squeezed tight. Mail. Scarce in his tweens, and already his world had become tied to the world of mail and swords and battle that hobbits had never been meant to know even existed. His fingers twisted in the cloth, trying to press away the hateful wrinkling. "Oh, Frodo, if I ever let anything happen to you…"  
  
"It shan't." The lad's head lifted, and this time the smile tucked into his mouth came to his eyes as well, filling them with a trust and a love that near took Sam's breath away. "It will be like you said, right? All of us feeling silly and red-cheeked when the King says it's nothing but a tiny band of Orc-mischief." His voice softened again, and he lay his forehead against Sam's, his words gusting warm on his father's lips. "Please, I'll stay at home if you demand it, but I beg you to let me follow."  
  
There was a long pause, then Sam hugged Frodo tight, pulling the curly head down to rest against his shoulder as he sighed. "Have your mother sew a layer of lambskin beneath the straps of your pack. It bites the shoulders on the long miles."  
  
TBC 


	7. 

"Reckoning"  
  
7/?  
  
All other info in part 1  
  
***  
  
It was so familiar, so strangely familiar. His room was for the most part as it always had been: the round window between his bed and Merry's letting in the afternoon sunlight, slightly dappled and danced by the flowers in the window box, two chests for their belongings, the row of hooks along the wall. Coats and cloaks still hung on Merry's side of the room, but the hooks on his side were naked, the lid of his chest hiding it's empty interior.  
  
Everything he owned was already packed onto the ponies or stuffed into the bulging canvas pack on his bed. Mum had insisted on it. They would be gone for eight months, after all, and near every kind of weather came up in eight months. He'd even been told to bring his best things; his own fine linen shirt and trousers, and the wine-coloured brocade weskit that had been passed down to him special from Mr. Baggins. Common things wouldn't do in the Court of Gondor, after all.  
  
He wondered what it would be like, Gondor. Elanor lived there, and it would be dear to see her again, and to at last look upon the sweeping lands of song and story. He would have a chance now to actually see the white towers of Minas Tirith and the glorious green fields of Ithilien with his own eyes, to dip his hand in the Anduin, to ride down the Great Southern Road in the footsteps of ancient armies….  
  
The thought sent a strange shiver through him, and he wasn't quite sure if it was the shiver of fear or excitement. Just two years past he had begged to go with Mum and Dad and Elanor when they took her to stay with Queen Arwen, and little Tom had been born on that journey, safe and sweet as you please, but things had changed now. They had changed in a matter of hours, and desires once clear had darkened and muddied.  
  
It wasn't the stories of two years ago, but those of twenty-five years ago that whispered in his mind as he stood in the half-emptied room, called to reckoning by the screams of his own father being stabbed by a thin blade that gleamed in a black and withered hand. He thought of Barrow-Wights and Black Riders, of Cave Trolls and giant spiders, and he remembered the Man that had come to ride escort to his parents, and how the top of their doorway had come to his breastbone. Hobbits really were very small creatures, all things said and done.  
  
"Forget sommat, Frodo?" Merry's voice startled him, and he looked up, surprised to feel his cheeks heat as though his younger brother had caught him in something wrong.  
  
"I don't think so." He looked again at the sudden emptiness on his side of the room. "I just thought I had more…things."  
  
"No, you just leave them everywhere, and it seems a fair sight more." Merry flopped down onto Frodo's bed, feigning astonishment as he ran his hands over the neatly tucked sheets and the folded quilt. "Did you tell Mum that you'd make your bed if she let you go to Gondor?"  
  
Frodo almost laughed, but somehow, Merry's perpetual teasing about his less than tidy habits seemed painfully frivolous. Still, he did his best to play along. No sense dragging the lad into his own melancholy. "Eight months without my dirty shirts in your way."  
  
Merry grinned, stretching out blissfully on the bed. The sunlight caught the side of his face, and he turned into it like a cat, closing his eyes. "Eight months of my own room."  
  
"That too."  
  
"You're still the luckier." His brother opened his eyes, envy painted over every feature as he sat up, leaning forward and cupping his chin in his hands. "Master Brandybuck should be here by tea, and then Dad will make his speech, and you'll be on your way to a fine adventure."  
  
"We're just going to Gondor. It's not an adventure." Frodo turned away deliberately, trying to make it very clear that he didn't want to talk about it.  
  
"Posh! It is so an adventure, Frodo! It is, and it's not proper fair that you get to go when you don't even truly want to! I'd die for such a chance, really I would."  
  
The eagerness in Merry's voice was grating, and Frodo's hands fisted tight. He just didn't understand. Dad was up on his feet, lying with every smile and unwavering step, the blood had been scrubbed away and the worst of the damage put to rights, and so easily, it had all become a great sleepover at Brandy Hall. "You're too young."  
  
"But two years less than you! And you're not quite the old Gaffer yourself."  
  
Frodo spun quickly, grabbing Merry by the shoulders and pulling him in until their faces almost met. "Are you daft? Or do you just not remember last night? Did you not see those things that came into our home?" Merry's eyes were wide, and Frodo suddenly realized that his fingers were cramped tight into the lad's flesh, and he let go, staggering back and turning away in shame. He had been yelling without recognizing it, but now his voice dropped, trembling and soft as a whisper. "I did. I saw them, and I touched them, and I smelled their breath, like rotting meat, and I…oh, Merry, I *killed* two of them. The sword just slid into them so easy, easier than gutting fish, and they screamed like…like…and they bled so much. All hot and black and they…" His head dropped into his hands, and he sank to his knees against the side of his bed, the sharp stink of the Orc blood still faint on his palms.  
  
His sobs came dry and without sound, but then Merry's arms were around him, his hands stroking slow and soothing over Frodo's back. "Easy, Frodo. Easy. It's over." He squeezed Frodo in a gentle hug, then pulled him away from the bed, turning him round again as Merry pushed an unruly lock of hair from Frodo's eyes. "I didn't mean it as a lark, I'm sorry. But you did kill them. You saved Dad and all of us. Everyone says you're a hero, just like Dad and Mr. Baggins. And now you'll get to go to Gondor. Old Bilbo had his journey, and Dad and Mr. Baggins theirs, and now you yours, and it will be the grandest of all of them, I'm certain. It's like a legacy, and you're easy brave enough for it. I only wish I could come, that's all."  
  
Frodo smiled as he took Merry's hand in both of his, but it was a smile without humour. "I've heard the talk as well." More than heard it, he'd run from it. Since dawn had first revealed the carnage he and Master Took had left on Bagshot Row, the hole had been filled with visitors. They had come with questions and fears, but they had stayed to help pack and cook and clean and repair. It seemed as if half the population of Hobbiton was crammed into Bag End, and he had fled to his room after elevensies, using his own packing as refuge from the endless mixed barrage of equally unwelcome comfort and adulation, but now it had finally found him again.  
  
It was enough to be Sam Gamgee's eldest son, but more than that, he was named after the Ring Bearer, and there had always been an unspoken expectation that he would *do something*. What, he hadn't been sure, and he certainly hadn't expected anything beyond the boundaries of the Shire, but now tongues were wagging harder than ever, and he knew that it would take little more than a moment's mistake to shame not only his family, but the memory of his father's dearest friend and Master. He chuckled darkly. "It's easy enough being brave when you need be, when it's just doing what proper needs doing. It's a sight harder being brave for a name, and I don't reckon there's ever been anyone what's brave enough for a legacy."  
  
Merry smiled back, deep and true and gentle. "Don't think of it as a legacy, then. It doesn't quite matter, I suppose, since either way you're going and I'm here and there's naught either of us can do about it now."  
  
"It will be different here as well."  
  
"Oh, aye." Merry rolled his eyes and sighed with the air of one eternally put upon. "I suppose you'll expect me to tell Ruby stories at bedtime, and keep the garden up, and check Hamfast's pockets before Mum gets to them, and keep Pip out of trouble…"  
  
Frodo chuckled. "Maybe not the last."  
  
The two lads looked at each other, then Merry grinned. "Carrot racing." Within moments, they were both helpless on the floor, laughing until their bellies ached and tears streamed down scarlet-flushed cheeks. It felt good, wrongrightcrazyperfect good, and Frodo found himself laughing long after the memory was truly funny, laughing for the pure joy of laughing and giggling and hearing the way that Merry snorted with each breath he managed to catch. At last, clinging to each other for support, they managed to crawl onto his bed, and there they lay, clutching their stomachs and staring up at the ceiling until the last titters had died away.  
  
Somehow, Merry's hand was in his, and Frodo just held it, not wanting even to move, just to lie there with the quilt soft and smelling of lavender and home under his head, Merry's hand warm in his grasp, and the rafters above him half-gold and half-shadow with the afternoon light. He wasn't sure how long they stayed like that before he heard Merry's voice, tentative as if he too recognized the fragile magic of the moment. "I might even miss you."  
  
Frodo turned his head to the side, giving Merry's hand a gentle squeeze. "Not for long, I wouldn't think. Not with your own room."  
  
It almost seemed as though Merry tried to smile, but his face remained still, even reverent as he stared up at the ceiling. "There is that."  
  
He wanted to stay there forever, to cling to that safe, familiar world with both hands, but Frodo knew that it was impossible. His life had changed completely in the last twelve hours, and there was nothing to be done for it. Reluctantly, he sat up, reaching for the pack that crouched on the end of the bed like a lumpy canvas predator. "I suppose I should be going now. Like you said, Master Brandybuck will be here any minute now, and then we'll be…" the word seemed to stick in his throat, and he had to swallow hard, "…off."  
  
Merry helped him settle the pack on his shoulders, tightened one strap, then paused, his eyes narrowing. "You're not taking anything of mine, are you?" Frodo gave Merry his best innocent expression, but the eyes only narrowed further, becoming thin brown slits of pure suspicion. "Not even the green weskit?"  
  
Frodo snugged the second strap himself, standing as he tied the loose ends of the straps around his waist. "That's mine anyway."  
  
"Then you *are* taking it!" Merry jumped to his feet, mouth agape as if startled to find his own thoughts confirmed. "You gave it to me for your birthday last year!"  
  
"No, I gave you the blue one. With the pewter buttons."  
  
"That one was mine all along." Merry folded his arms, attempting, Frodo knew, to look like Dad did when he was cross, but only succeeding in a fine imitation of little Daisy in a pout. "You're ever 'borrowing' that green one, Frodo, and it's not as though because you're older you can just -"  
  
"Never mind!" Frodo rolled his eyes, fumbling with the knot at his waist. A fine thing. Here he was, about to leave, and Merry was still on about that silly weskit. No one truly remembered who it belonged to, and warm and sturdy though it was, it wasn't worth leaving Merry in a fuss. "I'll leave it if it -"  
  
"Take it."  
  
Frodo blinked, suddenly unsure. The petulance seemed to have disappeared entirely, and he saw a strange emotion in its place, a fondness tinged bitter by fear. "But you…"  
  
"I suppose I do have the blue one, and you've taken the green so many times, one more doesn't quite matter, does it? Just so long as you don't get it torn or any such thing, since it is mine."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
He kissed his brother's cheek, but then Merry's arms were around him tightly, his dark curls soft against Frodo's neck as he buried his face in Frodo's shoulder. "I will miss you. Keep care." There was a moisture that Frodo suspected to be tears, but he said nothing, only held him as close as he could, closing his eyes and feeling the thin tremours through the plump, sturdy young body.  
  
"And you." He hugged him tight once more, then forced himself to pull back, kissing him in the middle of his forehead. Frodo couldn't bring himself to meet Merry's eyes, but the lad was chewing on his lower lip in the way that he only did when he was too upset to care what Mum thought of the habit, and he gave Merry's shoulders one last squeeze. "Keep care."  
  
Then Frodo turned to the door, that familiar door that led nowhere stranger than the halls of his own home, but now seemed to gape like the round mouth of a strange beast. With a last sharp tug on the straps of his pack, he took a deep breath. It was time to go.  
  
To Be Continued 


End file.
